With crumbling foundations, Western Mass. homeowners confront pyrrhotite in concrete

Updated Feb 23, 2019; Posted Feb 23, 2019

02/23/2019 -- EAST LONGMEADOW -- State Rep. Brian M. Ashe, D-Longmeadow, welcomed more than 100 homeowners Saturday to an information session on pyrrhotite in concrete foundations an on efforts to help homeowners address the issue. State Sen. Eric Lesser is to his right with his back to the camera. (JIM KINNEY/ THE REPUBLICAN)

EAST LONGMEADOW – Most 100 or so people gathered Saturday at the Pleasant View Senior Center couldn’t stop calling up photos on their smartphones and raising the tiny screens up to eye level, desperate for a stranger to take a look and render an opinion.

But these weren’t snapshots of the grandkids. These were photos of worrisome cracks and fissures in their basement walls or home foundations. And the people in this crowd – all homeowners who fear their homes were built with concrete containing pyrrhotite – displayed apprehension, not pride.

“This is the value of your home,” said Phil LaRosa of Harwich Road in East Longmeadow. “And its just crumbling.”

LaRosa figures he’s lucky, the telltale bubbling and spiderweb cracks and pitting caused by pyrrotite in concrete are only in a carport and garage added to his home about a dozen years ago.

Staff-Shot

12/5/2017 -Longmeadow- The foundation of a Longmeadow home deteriorates because of pyrrhotite-contaminated concrete in this file photo. (Don Treeger / The Republican)

“It’s an easier fix,” LaRosa said. “But its getting worse. Look around this room. Most of us are retired or getting older. We are going to want to sell our homes soon. And we might not be able to.”

Others have the failing concrete in their foundations and basement walls – hard-to-reach spots where repairs can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and put a family out of the house for months.

While unstoppable, the problem might not show up for 15 to 20 years and the only fix is to remove and replace it.

The gathering was part support group, part information session about programs the state of Massachusetts has in place to help pay for testing. It also touched upon lrganizing lobbying efforts.

“It’s really an informational session,” state Sen. Eric Lesser, D-Longmeadow, said. He was there with state Sen. Anne Gobi, D-Spencer and state Rep. Brian Ashe, D-Longmeadow.

A constituent-services staffer from the office of U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, was also there. Warren supports federal relief legislation sponsored by Connecticut Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Christopher Murphy.

In its most recent budget, Massachusetts set aside $50,000 to reimburse homeowners the entire cost of visual testing conducted by a licensed professional engineer up to $400. The fund will also reimburse homeowners at a rate of 75 percent for the testing of two core samples up to $5,000.

To receive reimbursement for foundation testing, homeowners must fill out a one-page form and mail it to the Office of Public Safety & Inspections, Crumbling Foundations, 1000 Washington Street, Boston, MA Suite 710, Boston, MA 02118.

Trinity College in Hartford has a program for testing core samples, said Tim Heim of Willington, Conn., founder of the grassroots organization Connecticut Coalition against Crumbling Basements.

Connecticut, where the problem showed up earlier, has people to help, he said. Homeowners were urged to network.

“Look around,” Heim said. “You are not facing this alone.”

His home has been collapsing for nearly a decade and he was only approved Friday for aid through a Connecticut program he lobbied to help create.

The pyrrhotite got into area homes in as a naturally occurring mineral in gravel mined in at the Becker Quarry in Willington, Connecticut. Now defunct J.J. Mottes Concrete used the stone to make concrete delivered to projects in Massachusetts and Connecticut from 1983 to 2015 when it voluntarily quit doing so at the request of the state of Connecticut.

Over time, the pyrrhotite reacts with oxygen and water and expands. Like water in the freeze-thaw cycle, the pyrrhotite reaction makes relentless pressure that cracks foundations and eventually crumbles the concrete in to a pile of worthless flakes.

Insurers won’t pay for the damage, although there are lawsuits pending that could force them to cover it.

Mottes is defunct.

There are no records saying exactly where Mottes concrete was used. Building permits list contractors and maybe list subcontractors like foundation companies. They never list suppliers, according to officials in affected towns.

Connecticut estimates that nearly 30,000 homes may have the problem. No one knows how many Massachusetts homes have the concrete.

But Robert Anderson, chief of inspections, building and engineering for the Massachusetts Division of Professional Licensure, told the crowd that the material could have been used in any home built from 1983 to 2015 within a 20-mile drive of the quarry. That works out to be a significant chunk of central and western Massachusetts.

Home inspectors at the meeting said they are instructed to look for pyrrhottite damage in any home being sold in Hampden, and Worcester counties and in the Hampshire County town of Ware.

Longmeadow Town Mangaer Stephen Crane said Longmeadow’s already granted one tax abatement to a homeowner whose property is worth less because of pyrrhotite contamination. There are other applications pending.

The abatement could end up costing towns like Longmeadow that depend on the residential tax roll for their revenue.

Pyrrhotite is already making it hard for some folks to sell their homes or forcing them to take a much reduced price.

Realtor John Wynne of Richton & Wynne Teamwork Reality Group in Longmeadow said he’s already had two sellers cut sales prices after the problem was found.

In one case, a home that was under contract to sell for $410,000 ended up selling for just $225,000. in another case, a home that was under contract to sell for $575,000 before the problem was discovered sold for just $302,000.

“And buyers are acutely aware of this problem,” Wynne said. “They demand inspectors look for it and that test for it in the affected towns.”

Some mortgage lenders require at least visual inspections for pyrrhotite before they will lend for homes in the affected towns that were built in the time period.

Once a home is tested or inspected, sellers are required to disclose those testes and results, Wynne said.

That raises a dilemma for homeowners who notice crumbling and cracking, but think they can live with the problem. if they get it inspected, and get it tested, they’ll have to take responsibility.

“I think its better to know,” said Oreste Varela of East Longmeadow as he, too scrolled on his phone through the photos of his basement.

There is some relief in the federal tax laws but homeowners will have to act quickly..

Taxpayers have through the end of 2020 to make qualified repairs to their home and until April 2021 to claim those repairs on an amended 2017 federal tax return. This accommodation within federal tax law came after lobbying from Connecticut congressmen Joe Courtney and John Larson working with U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal, D-Springfield, who was ranking minority member, and is now chairman, of the tax-writing House Ways & Mans Committee.

New tax rules passed late in 2017 eliminated an income tax deduction some homeowners had used to help finance repairs.